A Note on Process & Method

Traveling & Documenting Gothic Architecture

(5 min read) With the posting of my two-part, but still too-short, photo essay on the evolution of Gothic architecture — and since I am currently on my third day of a 110-day trip documenting more Gothic buildings — now seems like a good time for a short “process and methods” post.

Inside Selby Abbey Cathedral, my first stop on my current trip.

As I have occasionally mentioned in previous essays, I am currently working on a book about Gothic architecture. It is one in which the word-to-image ratio will be similar to the pieces I typically publish here — which is to say it will have far more images than a history book, but also be much more in-depth than a “coffee table”-style photo book.

I also aim to exclusively use my own photography for this book, just as I do for these essays (though from time to time I illustrate a point with a publicly available image). Since this book will be a comprehensive look at Gothic (even going beyond purely “architectural” topics), this means I need to photographically document a lot of buildings, as well as museum pieces and related artwork.

Between the fall of 2021 and spring of 2023, I managed to document some 140 works of Gothic (and Gothic-adjacent) architecture, with over 10,000 photographs total among them. In case you are curious, figure 1 shows the spreadsheet I use to organize things; this image shows the first thirtyish rows and the first eight columns of the table, sorted by number of photos taken.

1. My “nerd-out” spreadsheet of the Gothic architecture I have photographically documented (so far).

It’s an impressive list (if I do say so myself), and includes a significant majority of the buildings that would be on any “Top 20 Greatest Works of Gothic Architecture,” and I have extensive documentation of important cathedrals like Chartres, Canterbury, and Cologne (just to name a few that start with C).

On the other hand, I am still missing many significant works, and the buildings I have documented to date are not as wide-ranging as I would like. For example, half of the buildings I have come from are located in England and northern France. To some extent this is as it should be, as these regions were where Gothic was born and incubated. On the other hand, the number of places I have visited so far in Spain, Italy, and Germany certainly do not do justice to the traditions there, and I do not have any documentation of Gothic architecture from Central Europe.

Accordingly, I am currently traveling for 110 days straight this fall to round out my documentation, delve deeper into French and English examples, and revisit some places. Figure 2 is a screenshot of Google Maps showing the markers I have placed for Gothic (and Gothic-adjacent) architecture already visited (in blue) and which I aim to visit this fall (in red, orange, and yellow).

2. A map of Europe with markers showing Gothic architecture I have visited (in blue) as well as aim to (in red, orange, and yellow).

I won’t be able to visit them all. Red and orange markers represent the most important works of architecture that I have yet to visit, and I certainly aim to visit the 19 most important places with red markers, and most of the 79 places in orange. But I will likely be unable to to visit more than half of the 153 places marked with yellow.

But if I can manage to have another hundred Gothic buildings documented (probably with another 10,000 photographs) by the end of this trip, I will be in a good position to produce a very comprehensive book on the subject.

Pluscarden Abbey: chasing Gothic architecture on Scotland’s whisky trail.

This brings us to why I decided to post this process-oriented essay now, in between my first two parts of “The Evolution of Gothic Architecture.”

My documentation to date allows me to provide an very complete set of images describing the main strands of Gothic architecture in France and England, as well as delve into some of the regional variations in other countries. Over the course of the next few months, though, I will gather the photographs and knowledge to do much more justice to Spanish and Italian Gothic, for example, as well discuss regions whose Gothic architecture I currently do not know at all — for example, Polish, Czech, and Hungarian.

Sometimes the best Gothic art is in a museum: an exceptional Annunciation from 1333 by Simone Martini & Lippo Memmi.

So Part II will be more of an executive summary of the later stages of Gothic evolution, touching on the most important movements in England and northern France, but neither providing nearly as much depth as I would like nor showing examples outside those regions. Over the course of my travels, however — and well into next year, as I organize my photos and thoughts and mentally absorb my travel — I will continue to sporadically post additional essays in the “Evolution of Gothic” series.

By the end of the perhaps dozen or so I might end up doing, we will have a very comprehensive multipart essay on the evolution of Gothic over some four centuries and four million square kilometers. In the meantime, you can read Part I here; and please subscribe (it’s free) if you want to make sure you don’t miss Part II, to be published Saturday, or any future essays on the subject.